The American Health Care Act suffered a dramatic defeat today. House Republicans failed to finagle enough support among members of their own party to pass the legislation, and Drumpf had it tabled. The bill came up against opposition from extreme conservatives such as those in the House Freedom Caucus, and even powerful Republican donors led by the Koch brothers, who felt it didn't go nearly far enough in Obamacare repeal, and also from moderate Republicans concerned about the new bill's impacts on their constituents. This came after the vote was initially slated for yesterday, March 23rd, and Drumpf issued an ultimatum to Republicans: vote to pass the bill today, March 24th, or he would move on. When it became apparent that the Republicans didn't have the votes, instead of voting on the bill, the legislation was tabled.
My Facebook news feed was fairly alight with celebration.
"Obamacare is the law of the land... we're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future." Those are the words of Paul Ryan after the bill was tabled.
Drumpf and Ryan have both said they are done with health care reform for the time-being and moving on to tax reform. It's damaging to Drumpf's image as a successful deal-maker, and to Ryan's as the Speaker of the House, whose job is to whip up support to get bills like this passed.
Matthew Yglesias over at Vox thinks Democrats should now propose their own alternative Obamacare replacement. He stops short of saying go for a single-payer, Medicare-for-all type of plan even though his last line in the 3rd paragraph suggests he might see it as the best plan in the long run, he certainly thinks Democrats feel that way. He thinks a replacement could be drafted which echoes things Drumpf himself claimed to support on the campaign trail, in that way, offering such a replacement would be holding Drumpf's feet to his own fire.
Ryan Cooper over at The Week goes you one better and says now is the time for Democrats to push for Medicare-for-all. Unlike Yglesias, he offers almost no practical advice on how exactly to get such a thing passed when Republicans control Congress and the Presidency. The piece is otherwise sound enough that I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he knows it is not going to happen. He mostly argues that it Medicare for all is the way to go based on its relative simplicity to understand. He compares it to the 2010 attempt to pass the Affordable Care Act and how the ACA was so convoluted that the idea that it was laced with "death panels" and other such horrible fantasies was an easy sell. Trying to find such a boogie-man with a simpler-to-understand concept like Medicare for All would not be so easy. Medicare is already a functioning and relatively popular method of health insurance delivery in the United States. As Cooper observes, most people know someone who is on Medicare or who is counting down the years until they can get on it. It is only for people 65 and older right now, though.
One unique thing about Cooper's piece is that it makes an attempt to address the one major criticism that Democrats have used as a defense against pursuing Medicare-for-All: it would be "too disruptive." Exactly how the disruption it would cause would be worse than the current system which allows people to be priced out of pursuing important medical care or go bankrupt pursuing it, not clear to me, but Cooper suggests it be passed in a package with some kind of labor market support to ease transition for people who may lose their jobs when insurance companies go out of business.
Again, exactly how this is to pass in a Republican-controlled federal government is very unclear. But it seems like there would be plenty of reason for Democrats to pursue it, anyway. It is a popular proposal that would help a lot of people. Making the Democrats the face for it and making it one of the tenets of the party could help (or, at least, couldn't hurt) in future elections.
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